


Aftershock

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Time Travel, ends up as Harry/Tom, past! fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:28:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1298203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter is thrown back into the forties with none other than Luna Lovegood to guide him as he is pointed face-to-face with a young Tom Riddle who is, surprisingly, more human than he would have thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There were many things Harry Potter learned from the war, but one of the most important was that, sometimes, you had to pick which battles were worth fighting for. When Hermione insisted that the three of them sort through their old packs for Hogwarts before the next year started, he deigned it a necessary evil.

Three hours later, however, he had started to regret that decision.

Wondering how he had managed to fit so many broken quills into a single suitcase, he groaned, falling back against the wall in Ron's room with a thunk. Hermione studiously ignored him, sifting through what looked to be photographs. Ron made a small noise of understanding from his place on the floor, having given up long ago.

"'Mione," Harry began, sugar-sweet. "I-"

Hermione let out a small laugh at something she had found. Harry craned his neck to look, but her hands blocked his view. "Oh, Ginny'll love this," she said moments later, a hint of humor still in her voice. "It's my old time-turner." She let it drop on it's chain, bouncing it slightly as the cord pulled taught.

Harry frowned, thinking back to the end of that year. It had been quite a blur after the danger had passed, as most things were. "I'd thought that you turned that in to Professor McGonagall."

She paused, looking at the pendant hard, as if it could tell her what had happened to it and why it was there. "I had thought so as well," she murmured.

Ron laughed, a bit oblivious to the sudden tension in the air. "You,  _Hermoine Jean Granger_ , forgot something.  _You._ "

"If I remember correctly," she snapped, a faint blush grazing her cheekbones, "there was quite a lot going on at the time."

Harry nodded, watching the way the metal glinted bright in the light streaming out the window. "Can you-" he paused, swallowing his words back and choosing better ones. "Could you imagine what we could've done? If we'd only known?"

Hermoine shoved it in her pocket harshly. "Yes, I suppose so," she said, something not unlike guilt flickering across her face. "We can't change it now. What's happened, happened."

"Best to not dwell on it," Harry said, softly as he dared. She nodded.

They were all quiet for quite some time. 

 

* * *

 

After the war, several families had taken refuge at The Burrow. Most had long since left, but a few remained: the Lovegoods, Neville Longbottom, Teddy Lupin, and Andromeda Tonks. Despite Molly's insistence against it, lunch had became a grab-and-go activity. There was simply not enough room for everyone to eat at the table.

Along with Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Neville, and Ron, Harry sat under a larger tree in the backyard. They spread out with sandwiches and talked, watching the garden gnomes squirrel away noisily as they walked by.

"What do you think it'll be like to go back?" Luna asked dreamily, gazing off at something none of the others could identify. Her sandwich looked to be abandoned.

"I don't know," Harry responded. "Last year wasn't easy on anyone. Some are bound to be bitter."

"I think bitter would be an understatement, mate," Ron grimaced. "We locked the Slytherins in the dungeon."

"They were going to help Voldemort!" Neville protested around a mouthful of food.

Grimacing, Hermione countered, "Actually, most of them just wanted to be neutral. They didn't see the value in fighting either way."

"It's just as bad," Ron said fiercely. Neville nodded, and they both looked to Harry.

People did that often after the war. It was unnerving, to say the least. "I dunno," Harry said slowly. "If there were any way I could've avoided fighting, I would've taken it."

Luna smiled in his general direction. "Yes, but if you were there, and there was a war going on, I think we all know you would still be fighting, Chosen One or not."

Harry wasn't so certain, but he remained quiet.

"Oh," Hermione said, changing the subject in a way that was extremely appreciated. "You'll never guess what I found."

"What is it?" Ginny asked, appearing interested for the first time.

"My old time turner," she said, pulling it out of her pocket smoothly. "Isn't it odd?"

"Very," Luna intoned, grasping it away from Hermione smoothly and inspecting it with unusually sharp eyes. She fiddled with it almost absentmindedly.

Neville looked up from his intense study of the grass to his left. "It might do well for you to turn it in. From what you hear, the Ministry's in a bit of a fix. A lot got destroyed. Just think-that might very well be the last time-turner left."

"It's broken," Luna interjected almost lazily. "It must've twisted at some point."

Something in Hermione shifted, and she seemed almost relieved. "No use in giving it back, then," she said slowly. "They've got plenty of broken time-turners down at the ministry."

Harry nodded, part of him suspecting that his friend had been suffering more than a little bit of guilt over holding this little bit back from the effort, however unknowingly. He was glad she could let that go. They all held too much guilt already. It was of no use to add more.

"You're right." Harry met her eyes solidly. "There's nothing for it now. It's best not to dwell." He saw her nod almost imperceptibly. He looked up towards the sky for just a moment, eyeing the thin clouds dotting the horizon. Some things never changed.

Luna hummed a single note, off-key but somewhat soothing. Harry looked to her, smiling, and met her grey eyes with his green. He glanced at her hands, seeing her short nails and pale skin vaguely just as every last muscle in his body froze.

His eyes followed the movement of her small hands as they gripped the pendant, turning it around and around slowly, steadily.

"Luna!" he shouted, shocked, suddenly jumping to motion. He grabbed her hands in his, stilling her quickly, before any more damage can be done.

Her eyes slid down smoothly to rest on their conjoined hands. He could see the moment she realized what she'd done in the way she had buffed out a short breath of air, staring.

" _Oh_ ," she murmured. "That isn't good."

Everyone's eyes were glued to their intertwined hands, in the same way one cannot look away from a trainwreck. No one took single breath.

Nothing happened for several minutes. Inch by inch, they relaxed, thinking that, maybe, just maybe, there might not be anything to worry about after all. The time-turner  _had_  been broken, after all.

Ginny giggled softly, and the tension in the air evaporated like smoke under a fan.

Luna and Harry clutched each other's hands as they burst into grins. "Fuck," Harry said. "I thought we were done for, there. Didn't know what it would do."

He relaxed a bit more, thinking that they were safe, for that one second.

He only had a moment before he felt a twisting in his gut, like something was pulling at him from the inside out. Everything went black. All he could feel was Luna's hand in his, clutching tightly.

Soon he was lost in the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

 

"Where are we?"

The words came to Harry as though through a thick curtain. He groaned, head pounding while the rest of him felt oddly numb. Luna was next to him, he thought, her left hand still intertwined in his. He opened his eyes slowly, squinting at the bright light.

They were in a flat, rocky field, surrounded by knee-high grass. There was a small tree to their right. Luna's hair was in tangles, her striped skirt covered in mud. She was sitting up, taking the time-turner with her, and he distantly heard clanging from the metal links of its chain as they rattled together. His hand felt colder with it gone.

Harry remembered very slowly that she had asked a question. He surveyed the ground around him again, eying the landscape warily. "I wouldn't rightly know, but it _looks_ like The Burrow, doesn't it? Minus, well, The Burrow." He pushed himself up to stand roughly.

"It rather does," Luna agreed softly. Her gray sweater was a mess of small twigs and fuzz; she barely seemed to notice, absentmindedly trying to dust it off with the tips of her fingers. "We must've got thrown back before Molly and Arthur married in-what was it? 1968? 1969? Before 1970, when Charlie was born."

For a second, Harry felt his breath catch in his throat as it hit him-everyone they knew might as well not exist. At the very least not in the way they knew them.

He cleared his throat forcefully. "Luna-I mean. What do we know about traveling forward in time?"

She met his eyes for a long moment before looking out to the skyline. "When someone travels back into time, Harry, they create a brand new time-line. Everything that hasn't happened yet ceases to exist. There isn't a future to go back to and, if there is, we could never reach it."

Harry tried his best to process this. He felt faint. "But-there has to be a way-" Ron. _Hermione_.

Luna's hand clasped his for just a moment, holding lightly before letting go. "I'm sorry," she murmured. They didn't speak again for some time.

There were no words.

 

* * *

 

Later, they both agreed to try finding the Lovegood house and use their Floo in order to reach Diagon Alley. Luna ensured him the building had existed for many centuries and should, rightly, exist whenever they were as well. If it didn't, they were in more trouble than they already imagined. Harry followed her there carefully, trudging through tall grass and covering his jeans in dark stains that he knew would likely never come out.

"What if they're home?" he asked her. "Your relatives?"

Luna's hair was a wild mess, curls tangled into each other thoroughly. "They don't have any reason to think we're any more than we are-strangers that got turned around and need to use the Floo. It shouldn't be a problem."

That made sense, he thought. It would be okay. Harry took a few deep breaths and tried not to think about what came after that.

The house was coming into his view. It looked the same as it always had, tall and black and cylindrical. Harry stared at it for only a moment, but the sight was oddly therapeutic. Some things hadn't ever changed.

Luna nodded to him faintly before trudging forward to the door, taking each step upward in a practiced motion. She eyed the handle almost warily. "It's either going to let me in or it won't," she murmured slowly. "I'm hoping it'll recognize me as a member of the family, or at least the bloodline."

"And what then? If it doesn't?"

"I'm not certain," she said pausing. With one hand, she reached for it, clasping the dark metal lightly. "Let's hope for the best, shall we?"

She turned it swiftly and pulled backwards, smiling as the door offered no resistance. At least some things were going their way. Harry followed her in, trying to avoid even brushing up against the door.

The fireplace was directly to their left, with a small, bright yellow pot of Floo powder sitting beside it.

"We probably shouldn't stay for long," Luna said mournfully, eyeing her home as if it were the last time she would be allowed to do so. The furniture was different, but the feel of the house was still the same. She didn't want to go.

Harry clasped her shoulder for a second and gave her a small smile, remembering that he wasn't the only one who had lost something. "We have to go," he said firmly. "But I am sorry."

She nodded, closing her eyes for just a second before opening them again. "Okay then," she said, striding over to the fireplace. "Let's do this."

They held hands as they fell into the fireplace, determined not to lose the last thing they had left.

 

* * *

 

Diagon Alley bustled around them as it always had, but this time it felt claustrophobic. The shops were different, and everyone gave them odd looks, seeing Luna's destroyed hair and his ripped jeans and seeming to have no idea what to think of them.

They both stuck to the sides of the streets, trying to avoid the crowds in order to take a breath.

"We need to rent a room," Luna said.

"I think I can see the Leaky Cauldron up ahead." If Harry stood on the tips of his toes, he could just barely see over the masses of people around them.

Grabbing Luna's hand, he pulled her through the throng of people around them, taking one determined step after the other. When they finally made it inside, they each took a deep breath, despite the large amount of tobacco smoke fogging up the building. Harry choked on it slightly, but Luna just frowned, going forward.

"Hello," she said to the bartender, a heavyset woman with a round, friendly face. "Could my brother and I have a room for the next few nights? We've had a long trip getting here and I'm afraid we have nowhere to stay."

The woman smiled at them in a vaguely maternal way, ushering them a little away from the crowd. "Yes, of course," she said. "Two galleons a night should be quite right for the both of you. Coming in town for the new school year, are you?"

"Oh," Harry said, faintly surprised. "Yes, of course. What day is it, again?"

"We got a bit lost," Luna explained to her quickly, counting the coins out in her pocket as she did.

"Oh, it's the thirty-first," the woman said kindly. "You'll have to catch the train tomorrow at nine and three-quarters."

Luna nodded her thanks, handing the money over in exchange for a key. They both followed her upstairs to their small room. It was fit with two single beds and a bathroom. After cleaning themselves up as best they could, they went back onto the street. With the shared coins out of both of their pockets, they bought robes and underclothes for themselves. Luna insisted on buying a newspaper as they made their way back into their room.

"August 31st," she murmured almost disbelievingly. "1943. Harry, that's forty-six years, within a few weeks."

"We're still fighting the war with Grindlewald, then," he stated from his side of the room. Harry couldn't find it within himself to feel more than a blank shock at it anymore. There would always be a war.

They both lay in their beds, the lights turned dark. For several moments, they didn't speak.

"He's back now, you know. He's alive." Luna's words came to him in the dark, and Harry shuddered, knowing exactly who she meant.

"I know." He had tried to avoid thoughts of it the whole day, as if by ignoring the possibility would make it go away.

"He's going to be at Hogwarts tomorrow. You're going to have to look past him like he isn't there."

Harry took a deep, shuddering breath. He wasn't certain he could do that, but he would try. "I'm not ever going to get past him, am I?" he asked her slowly.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I really don't know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kudos! I'm glad you've liked it so far. Please tell me what you think of this chapter. I'd love to hear any opinions. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please tell me what you think.


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